Options for Outdoor Lighting: Calgary’s Mirage Landscaping

Mirage Landscaping of Calgary is a full-service commercial and residential landscaping design, construction, and maintenance firm. We know that your back yard entertaining space is not only a welcome retreat, but also an expression of your taste and personality.

In the design phase of either a new construction or a remodel of your backyard, there are myriad details, all of them important. Deck or patio? Concrete or brick? Brick or tile? Built-in features or more open space? Gas or wood burning-fire pit? Water feature or no? The number of choices is great, but can seem overwhelming.

Mirage Landscaping of Calgary will make sure you get exactly what you want out of your outdoor space. Call us for a free quote. Our three generations of experience will assist with every decision you wish to consult upon.

Oddly though, when most people are designing their backyard entertaining area, they imagine it during the daytime. However, outdoor entertaining also takes place after the sun sets. How you light your space is an important detail.

The good thing about outdoor lighting is the flexibility in its planning and execution. You can opt for permanently fixed lighting that is attached to the house. If you want more varied lighting, lamp strings are both handy for placement exactly where you want them, but can also promote a more “resort-like” atmosphere. If more subtle lighting is your preference, there are hard wired foot lamps, spotlights, or even solar powered lights that can be emplaced for softer lighting effects.

Finally, there is the time honoured naked flame, whether we’re talking about a candle in a lantern case, a brazier, or even a bamboo framed yard torch, there is nothing more primal, or romantic, than the flickering play of light and shadow that comes from a flame. Let’s go into greater detail of the three main types of outdoor lighting commonly available:

Fixed Electrical Lamps

These range from the bulb box activated by a switch beside our sliding door, to totally controlled spotlights built into the eaves, or even into the surface of your patio itself. Such lighting can be direct, which some people feel is too harsh in the dark, to indirect light from installations such as footlights, bands of LED strips recessed along decorative walls, or highlighting otherwise darkened steps. Whatever the case, these features are marked by their permanence. While it is difficult to change the lighting scheme installed this way, the trade-off is increased durability and more ability to dim or brighten the lights as you see fit.

Strung Lamps And Solar

Strung lights range from re-purposing Christmas light strings, to buying designer “party lamps” to be strung in various patterns over the main entertaining space.

The best feature of strung lamps is that their numerous variations result in a nearly limitless chance to express your creativity. You can make an outdoor chandelier. You could go for some Asian flair with paper-bodied lamps. With clear mini-LEDs and some patience, you could even rig an overhead lighting pattern that approximates the stars of the night sky.

Solar powered lamps add to your placement versatility. More than just the path-marking foot lamps of old, solar powered lights have been making inroads toward mainstream acceptance. There is great satisfaction in being able to cast light wherever you want it in your backyard without an electrical cord being a factor. Do note that the onboard battery and the lumens cast, greatly effect how long solar lamps cast light.

Fire

Despite their obvious risks around children, pets, and, let’s say, over-entertained adults, candles and torches still present such an elemental atmosphere that many people prefer the ambiance of naked flames to that of any style of electrical lighting. Please, have a functioning fire extinguisher handy just in case the worst happens.

The good news is that there have never been so many great fire based options to choose from. There are wrought iron candle bases, which can act as table centerpieces or floor mounted lamps. There are also ground stakes from which a bewildering array of lightweight small to three wick candle cases can operate as hung lanterns. Finally, there are even small tea light containers that economically allow very localized lighting along tabletops or decorative walls.

Contact Mirage

Please contact us at Mirage Landscaping of Calgary for a free quote on any outdoor landscaping project.